Democrats grapple with the fear factor

For Democrats, things rarely get much better than this. In 2008, they’ll be running to succeed an unpopular incumbent, against an opposition that has rarely been more disorganized or dispirited. Polls show a Democratic advantage on major issues nearly across the board.

Amid all these favorable signs, it’s only natural that some of the party’s top strategists would be pondering the same question: Wonder how we’ll screw it up this time?

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“We are a little bit of a shellshocked political party. We somehow or another always figure out a way to blow it,” Democratic strategist James Carville said. “Democrats have to talk their way out of winning.” Carville was not exactly serious but not exactly kidding. Even as all the trends seem to be breaking their way, Democrats still sound a bit like a boy who has been beaten up too many times on the playground: certain another punch is coming.

It’s more than paranoia. After all, many of the formulas political scientists use to predict elections suggested Democrats would take the White House in 2000 and 2004.

And it remains a fact that the party — even during two terms of Bill Clinton — has not broken 50 percent of the vote in a presidential election in more than 30 years, and it has done it only twice in the past 60 years. Plus, there’s plenty of precedent for a seemingly insurmountable lead (remember President Michael Dukakis from the summer of 1988?) to evaporate in the blink of an eye.

“No matter how the stars are aligned now, the stars keep moving,” said Mario Cuomo, the former New York governor and almost presidential candidate.

“Republicans have just gotten very good at this,” Carville said of presidential politics. “Somehow or another, in the last three elections, they’ve tended to close a little better than we have. No. 3 is that they have a more disciplined and effective echo chamber.”

A portion of Democratic unease relates to the source of the party’s improved prospects. Democrats’ resurgence “is a result of a complete implosion of the Republican Party,” as Carville put it. “This is not like some great enthusiasm for Democrats out there.”

Veteran Democrats have watched, at times admittedly stunned, as Republicans have seen the national security advantage they’ve enjoyed since the Vietnam War erode. The majority of Americans have now not only turned against the war in Iraq but the Republican president leading it.

Republicans’ emphasis on “family values” has been equally sullied by one GOP scandal after another, many of a prurient nature. And leading Republicans like former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan are now castigating their own party as spendthrifts.

Meanwhile, Republicans are in the midst of an unusually disjointed and heated primary contest just as issues traditionally associated with Democrats seem to be rising in the public consciousness.

The Pew Research Center’s longitudinal polling has found that support for Democratic policies like “strengthening the social safety net” has “steadily increased in recent years,” amid “growing public concern about income inequality.”

The Democratic base seems remarkably self-assured about the chances for victory. A March CBS News/New York Times poll found that nearly eight in 10 Democrats believe the next president will come from their party. Only roughly half of Republicans said the same. Little has changed since.

And historical precedents are equally reassuring for Democrats. Only once in the past half-century has a political party won three terms in a row (in 1988). More haunting for Republicans, the ceiling on presidential coalitions has been roughly 40 years. What began in 1968 with Richard Nixon may end in 2008.